[Dovecot] Authentication difficulties
There are constantly pretty basic questions in this list (and in my inbox) about how to get user authentication work correctly. This means that the documentation how it all works is either bad, or people don't find it easily. Any ideas how to improve it?
I did this now:
- Documentation link in dovecot.org now points directly to Wiki, so people don't go read the outdated documents
- Upcoming 1.0-tests and 0.99.13 will contain doc/USE-WIKI-INSTEAD file pointing to Wiki: http://dovecot.org/list/dovecot-cvs/2004-December/003928.html
- Updated comments in dovecot-example.conf: http://dovecot.org/list/dovecot-cvs/2004-December/003924.html
- Added pointers to Wiki in dovecot-example.conf: http://dovecot.org/list/dovecot-cvs/2004-December/003927.html
How good are the Wiki documents about user authentication in general? The content should probably be split somehow to "getting started" vs. "everything there is to know about it" and "system users" vs. "virtual users". I'm not really sure how to best do that though.
I think the Wiki in general could be better organized. Wish I knew how.
On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 19:53:04 +0200 Timo Sirainen <tss@iki.fi> wrote:
There are constantly pretty basic questions in this list (and in my inbox) about how to get user authentication work correctly. This means that the documentation how it all works is either bad, or people don't find it easily. Any ideas how to improve it?
Or some people are just lazy. People often take the path of least resistance. I'd think long and hard before bothering the author of software with basic questions (or any at all, come to that). Over the past couple of years I've noticed a big increase in the "lazy culture" in the OS software arena in which people do little if any work to try to find the answers to their questions (other than ask others).
My suggestion would be to refer all such questions here to the existing documentation (you've done an excellent job on the Wiki; let's not waste it). You could even say that if people believe that the Wiki could be improved then they should improve it or report the deficiency here if they are unable to improve it. A boilerplate reply to such questions will be quicker for you, could result in deficiencies in the Wiki being fixed, and who knows, it may even get the message across the minority who expect free (beer) software and free consultancy from the author.
Hmm, sounding aggressive there! Happy new year to all.
Keith
Keith Edmunds wrote:
On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 19:53:04 +0200 Timo Sirainen <tss@iki.fi> wrote:
There are constantly pretty basic questions in this list (and in my inbox) about how to get user authentication work correctly. This means that the documentation how it all works is either bad, or people don't find it easily. Any ideas how to improve it?
Or some people are just lazy. People often take the path of least resistance. I'd think long and hard before bothering the author of software with basic questions (or any at all, come to that). Over the past couple of years I've noticed a big increase in the "lazy culture" in the OS software arena in which people do little if any work to try to find the answers to their questions (other than ask others).
My suggestion would be to refer all such questions here to the existing documentation (you've done an excellent job on the Wiki; let's not waste it). You could even say that if people believe that the Wiki could be improved then they should improve it or report the deficiency here if they are unable to improve it. A boilerplate reply to such questions will be quicker for you, could result in deficiencies in the Wiki being fixed, and who knows, it may even get the message across the minority who expect free (beer) software and free consultancy from the author.
I disagree. When I download a package and try to learn it, I do two things right off the bat. First I try the online documentation on the website, and then I read the /usr/share/doc files. While I like dovecot quite a bit, I found it deficient in both areas. When I first installed it, I couldn't find anything purporting to be current documentation on the website, and at the time I didn't see anything about a wiki. (Note that I haven't been back to the website.) And the docs that came with the software at the time was also out of date and had no links to any wiki. So I ended up doing a whole lot of Google searches to figure out what I needed.
Normally I'd volunteer to try and help, but I'm rather busy studying for the RHCE and attending to my post- 9/11 military duties. The best that I can hope to do is to finish a script that I've been writing that takes a fresh CentOS install and turns it into a secure email server, complete with dovecot.
Ben
participants (3)
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Benjamin J. Weiss
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Keith Edmunds
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Timo Sirainen